


A Familiar Visitor

by Morning66



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Horcrux Hunting, Horcruxes, M/M, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Regulus Black Lives, briefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28777245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morning66/pseuds/Morning66
Summary: Peeking out the crack, Remus sees something, someone, that makes him take a step back. A boy—man, they’re all men now, or at least were men—with pale skin covering high cheekbones, longish black hair and haughty eyes. It’s a combination Remus never expected to see again save nightmares and old photographs that he should have burnt last November.Remus pulls the door all the way open. It’s not Sirius. It’s Regulus.
Relationships: Regulus Black & Remus Lupin, Regulus Black & Sirius Black, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 20
Kudos: 168





	A Familiar Visitor

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!!
> 
> Just a little thing.
> 
> Warnings: swearing, brief mention of suicidal thoughts

The knock comes early one morning in March of ‘82 when Remus is waiting for his tea to boil and looking through the Muggle classifieds for something to cover the next month’s groceries.

It’s surprising, in part because it’s barely half seven and also because the Lupin’s cottage is so far out of the way, the likelihood of anyone finding it by accident is near none. And, Remus thinks bitterly as he folds the classifieds and heads for the door, there’s no one left who would seek it, not anymore, not for over months now.

“Coming,” Remus calls, limping towards the door, old boards creaking under his feet. He hurt his leg during the last moon three nights ago and it hasn’t fully healed. He always was shit at healing spells, ironically.

Remus opens the door just a crack at first, a remnant of the war. The first flat he ever got—him and Black in some shithole neighborhood in Muggle London—he had to do it constantly, had to always be asking what the first thing so in so ever said to so in so was and what did they eat for the Christmas feast in third year.

Fat lot of good that did.

Peeking out the crack, Remus sees something, someone, that makes him take a step back. A boy—man, they’re all men now, or at least were men—with pale skin covering high cheekbones, longish black hair and haughty eyes. It’s a combination Remus never expected to see again save nightmares and old photographs that he should have burnt last November.

Remus pulls the door all the way open. 

It’s foolish, sure, but when has Remus not been foolish? He spent his adolescence convincing himself that he belonged, that there was a place for him in the world, that he could ever be anything more than a monster.

It’s not Sirius. 

It takes Remus half a second to realize this and his mouth falls open, because if there’s one thing more surprising then an imprisoned man on his doorstep, it’s a dead man on his doorstep.

“Regulus,” Remus breathes, thinking back to an eleven-year-old Regulus Black being dragged into their compartment on the train by Sirius. “What..?”

“Lupin,” Regulus says, voice hoarse, but clear. “Can I come in?”

Remus blinks, still confused. Then, a shrill noise pierces the air—the kettle’s whistle.

“Yeah,” Remus says, “Maybe you’d better.”

Remus leads him in through the foyer and back towards the kitchen. 

It’s possibly a bad idea to let a traitor’s Death Eater brother into his house, but it’s early and Remus has been reckless since Halloween, at least about his own life. The house has been empty save him since his father died last month of a heart attack that at his worst moments, Remus is entirely convinced was caused by too much stress. It wasn’t like they’d been particularly close—there was always something between them, guilt and resentment twisted together—but after his death, after all the deaths, Remus wasn’t sure if he cared one way or another if he lived.

“Take a seat,” Remus offers, keeping one eye on Regulus as he pours them both tea. “Sugar?”

“No, thank you,” Regulus says as Remus passes him his mug and takes a seat across from him.

They sit in silence for a moment. Regulus leans over his tea, breathes in the steam rising from it.

To say that Regulus looks like Sirius would be both a truth and a lie. They share the same features: dark hair, grey eyes, high cheek bones, and an aloof way of holding themselves that was certainly drilled in by some tutor during their childhood. Still, there always used to be something unmistakably alive and vibrant about Sirius that Regulus lacked. It wasn’t anything you could put a finger on, but it was true.

“Not to be tactless, but I was under the impression you were dead,” Remus says.

“Everyone was,” Regulus replies. “Well, everyone but Kreacher.”

Remus tilts his head to the side. “Your house elf?”

He has memories, memories once golden, now shrouded in hurt and regret, of Sirius complaining about the old thing, loud, hilarious stories that made a joke out of everything his family stood for.

Regulus nods. “Listen, I don’t—I can’t, I mean...” he sucks in air, then speaks again, this time with confidence. “Voldemort is going to return.”

Well, that’s a cheery thought, Remus thinks. “Pardon?”

“You didn’t think a baby would stop him, did you?”

In truth, Remus hadn’t thought much about the entire mechanism, dwelling instead in the truth that Voldemort was gone and friends were all dead or dead to him.

“He’ll come back. He’s coming back. I’ve been trying to stop him, but I don’t think I can do it on my own.”

“You think I can help?” Remus asks, sounding skeptical.

Regulus shrugs. “Sirius always said you were smart. I was thinking we could appeal, get him out of Azkaban, maybe see if the Black name still holds meaning, and then—“

“Regulus,” Remus starts, voice heavy with tension and anger. “Sirius won’t help. He, he’s a...”

Merlin’s balls, Remus still can’t say the word.

Regulus blinks and even with the emotionless Black facade, Remus can tell he’s confused. “You actually think Sirius did that?”

He sounds incredulous.

“Do you not? They caught him, Regulus.”

Regulus purses his lips. “He didn’t, he wouldn’t have. Sirius, every time he stood up to my parents, every time they...I don’t know what happened, but my brother wasn’t a traitor. Not to your cause, at least,” he laughs humorlessly. “Pettigrew was the traitor.”

Remus’s mouth falls open in shock. He quickly closes it and licks his lips. 

“Peter?” Remus asks. “Peter Pettigrew?”

“Back in ‘79 he was at some meetings. Masked, we all were, but I’d recognize one of my brother’s disgusting, blood traitor friends anywhere,” he says the last part ironically, as if repeating something someone—probably Walburga Black—had said in the past. “Squeaky voice, chubby, hunched over figure.”

Remus takes a breath. Peter, a traitor? Hearing it at first had been a shock, but on second thought, it made some sense. After they all finished at Hogwarts, Peter had been distant, often away at odd hours. Remus hadn’t thought much of it—he’d been distant too and no matter what Sirius had said was definitely not a traitor—but with the benefit of hindsight, it made sense. 

And anyway, he thought, a memory tugging at his mind, hadn’t James, James who would never suspect any of his friends of anything, said that it had been Peter who’d put the idea that Remus was a spy in Sirius’s mind?

“Fuck,” Remus murmurs.

It made fucking sense. Peter had always been the most scared, and those few years of the war were the scariest times of Remus’s life. As the days wore on and victory seemed more and more a foolish pipe dream, wouldn’t it be like Peter to change sides? He always had been smarter than they all gave him credit for.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see it,” Remus says quietly.

“Honestly, I figured if anyone believed in him, it would have been you.” 

There’s something in Regulus’s voice that’s meaningful in a way that twists Remus’s stomach. “What d’you mean?”

Regulus shrugs, doesn’t look at Remus. He twists a piece of Remus’s Muggle newspaper in his fingers. “Well, you two were, y’know. Weren’t you?”

The words, out of Sirius’s estranged brother’s mouth no less, send a shock through Remus. Had they been? They’d been something, Remus thinks. They’d done enough, they’d hinted at enough, for him to know that. Something fragile and unspoken, but real and undeniable.

They’d been something, sure, something too fragile for the war.

“How’d you...?”

“He’s my brother. We didn’t always get on, but I knew him like the back of my hand. I knew he went that way and I figured it had to be you or Potter and they both seemed too much like brothers.”

He says the last part with twinge of jealousy and Remus remembers Sirius’s intense hatred of his family, of all they stood for. Remembers Sirius leaving, brilliant and bright, and thinks of Regulus left behind, at most fourteen.

“He went to your funeral,” Remus offers. “After everyone left. He cried.”

Regulus’s eyes soften and Remus is reminded of how after his Sorting, Regulus had sought out Sirius, tears brimming in his eyes. Sirius, angry and hurt, had ignored him and Remus had watched as the tears rolled down the little boy’s face.

“That’s...” Regulus doesn’t finish, staring down at the table again. “We’ll get him out. We need him for this.”

“What is this?” Remus asks.

Regulus laughs, just a little, and Remus can’t help but think of Sirius, ever laughing in the face of danger. “Just a little horcrux hunting.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! =D 
> 
> Have a nice day!!


End file.
